We shot down that satellite:

WASHINGTON (AP) – A missile launched from a Navy ship successfully struck a dying U.S. spy satellite passing 130 miles over the Pacific on Wednesday, a defense official said. Full details were not immediately available.

It happened just after 10:30 p.m. EST.

Two officials said the missile was launched successfully. One official, who is close to the process, said it hit the target. He said details on the results were not immediately known.

The goal in this first-of-its-kind mission for the Navy was not just to hit the satellite but to obliterate a tank aboard the spacecraft carrying 1,000 pounds of a toxic fuel called hydrazine.

U.S. officials have said the fuel would pose a potential health hazard to humans if it landed in a populated area. Although the odds of that were small even if the Pentagon had chosen not to try to shoot down the satellite, it was determined that it was worth trying to eliminate even that small chance.

Not my words:

KIGALI, Rwanda — Bob Geldof has parachuted into the White House travel pool here in Rwanda, and will join us on the flight from Air Force One to Ghana tonight.

He’s going to interview President Bush for Time magazine and several European outlets, such as Liberacion, about aid to Africa for HIV/AIDS, malaria, and business development.

Mr. Geldof is an Irish rock and roll singer and longtime social activist who has helped, along with U2 rocker Bono, raise awareness about need in Africa. His most well known achievement is organizing the Live Aid concert in 1985, which raised money for debt relief for poor African countries.

But Mr. Geldof has remained closely engaged with African affairs since then, and he spoke off the cuff to reporters today who were waiting for a press conference with Mr. Bush and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Mr. Geldof praised Mr. Bush for his work in delivering billions to fight disease and poverty in Africa, and blasted the U.S. press for ignoring the achievement.

Mr. Bush, said Mr. Geldof, “has done more than any other president so far.”

“This is the triumph of American policy really,” he said. “It was probably unexpected of the man. It was expected of the nation, but not of the man, but both rose to the occasion.”

“What’s in it for [Mr. Bush]? Absolutely nothing,” Mr. Geldof said.

This is where reality entirely evaporates the leftwing critique of President Bush – which is either that he’s an idiot, or that he’s diabolical. Idiots and monsters don’t do what President Bush has done in Africa over the course of his Administration – and, lefties, this same President Bush who has worked so hard for the betterment of Africa? He’s the same President Bush who ordered the liberation of Iraq – and he did it, boys and girls, based upon the same requirements of morality. Fundamentally, as even Barack Obama recently opined, we are our brother’s keeper – President Bush understands this and during his whole Administration, he’s been motivated by this impulse.

While the left simply believes a string of lies about President Bush, the reality is that he did what he felt was best for the people of America, and the people of the world. Mistakes were made. Things didn’t go exactly as planned or hoped – but the reason he did what he did is because President Bush understands that the only proper policy for a Christian nation (such as the United States) is to do the right thing, regardless of the cost or the difficulty. As I’ve said many times of late, we’re going to miss this man President Bush when he leaves office – McCain is a fine patriot; Obama and Hillary believe in failed policies, but I’m sure they believe they have it right…but no matter which of them is sworn in on January 20th, 2009, none of them will have quite the combination of fortitude and love of humanity displayed by President Bush…all we can hope is that President Bush’s successor can grow into his shoes.

Larry Kudlow thinks so:

Please allow me a dose of hardened market realism concerning Obama’s landslide victory in Wisconsin. The race is over. Hillary is finished. The Clinton Restoration is over. President Bill Clinton’s political invincibility is over. Hillary’s electability is over.

Obama got to the far Left faster than she did. He out organized her in the precincts. He out fundraised her. He out speechified her. He out-hustled her. He out-dressed her. He out-presidentialed her. He outdid her and he outbid her for votes, one promised government check at a time.

A 15-point margin in Wisconsin is incredible. Wisconsin is a lot like Ohio except for the wacko ultra-Left Madison college population, which is even worse that Columbus’s Ohio State. But there are so many campuses in Ohio that will go for Obama that it is no matter. Think faculty voters, grimly determined for a left-wing takeover of America ” from the bottom up” to use the former Saul Alinsky community organizer’s phrase. As goes Wisconsin, so goes Ohio.

Not even Hillary’s last-minute bashing of business and free-market capitalism, which is a complete repudiation of her husband’s presidency, could save her. Obama got there first, with a style and elegance that Hillary simply cannot match.

Bashing Obama for plagiarizing Deval Patrick? That negativism backfired. Go after Michelle Obama’s incredible anti-American speech? You must be kidding. The women are coming ’round to Obama. Going super-negative over the next two weeks? It’ll kill her. Obama will beat her by 35 points instead of twenty. Lift the sanctions on Michigan and Florida? It’s an Obama trump card. Bribe or rent the super-delegates? Make my day, Obama is thinking.

Hillary’s best bet to preserve her career as a professional politician? Pull back significantly in Texas and Ohio, as a prelude to withdrawal. Bill will say no, ’cause his career is even deader than hers. But Hillary has more class than he does. She still has some vague sense of reality, of the difference between right and wrong, even if he does not.

Strong words, and hard to argue with – but I’m not so sure that Hillary will back out. It is now or never for her, and while a wise person would start to back out and make plans for a lifetime in the Senate, eventually becoming a major power in that body, Hillary doesn’t entirely strike me as a wise person. Kudlow, I think, gives her too much credit – but, of course, I could be wrong. We’ll see over the next two weeks.

No matter how much hope Obama generates, miserable, self-absorbed liberals who always look on the dark side of life will, well, always lack real hope – via Victor Davis Hanson over at NRO’s The Corner:

Re: “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is making a comeback.” — Michelle Obama

I wrote not long ago that Michelle Obama is a loose cannon, and I fear that her latest is not her last. I would have thought that two Ivy-League degrees, a joint income of about a million dollars, exclusive private schools for the kids, and a nice home in the suburbs were not so bad and might suggest that hope had made a comeback well before Barack’s presidential run.

Were Democrats fleeing the self-absorption of the Billary power couple of two Yale-educated lawyers — only to embrace the self-absorption of a power-couple of two Harvard-educated lawyers? Or was it a Yale versus Harvard Law School intramural thing all along?

Liberals live in a very small, very dark alternate universe – peopled with devils called “Christians”, “capitalists”, “Republicans” and “conservatives” who are always out to get them and destroy the world. Bravely they stand against this, but it is mostly a stance of despair – but, sometimes, a bright light breaks through…no, not the light of God Almighty; not even the light of a saint, such as Mother Theresa…but the light of a slick-talking political hack who just says the right things in the right tone of voice.

Pathetic. And Hanson is right, Mrs. Obama is a loose cannon – and if they can’t talk some sense to her, she’s going to be a liability as bad as Theresa was for Kerry in 2004.

Matt and I have been pointing this out for a while – and those of you who read Caucus of Corruption know all about it…but now it gets a bit worse for Obama:

For the first time, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama has surfaced in the federal corrupton case against his longtime campaign fund-raiser, Tony Rezko, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

The Illinois senator isn’t accused of any wrongdoing. And there’s no evidence Obama knew contributions to his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign came from schemes Rezko is accused of orchestrating.

The allegations against Rezko that involve Obama are contained in one paragraph of a 78-page document filed last month in which prosecutors outline their corruption and fraud case against Rezko, who was also a key money man for Gov. Blagojevich and other politicians.

Rezko is set to go to trial Feb. 25. The revelation that Obama’s name could come up in court is a political headache he doesn’t need as he heads into a round of primaries that are likely to determine his party’s nomination for president.

Obama is not named in the Dec. 21 court document. But a source familiar with the case confirmed that Obama is the unnamed “political candidate” referred to in a section of the document that accuses Rezko of orchestrating a scheme in which a firm hired to handle state teacher pension investments first had to pay $250,000 in “sham” finder’s fees. From that money, $10,000 was donated to Obama’s successful run for the Senate in the name of a Rezko business associate, according to the court filing and the source.

While there is, as the report says, no evidence that Obama knew of these shennigans, the fact that Rezko was part of Obama’s senatorial finance committee puts a very large question mark against Obama – what did he know, when did he know it; and if he didn’t know it, how does that reflect on his executive ability to run a large organization? Rezko, by the way, isn’t just some guy – he’s a long time, close associate of Obama who, amongst other things, pulled off a creepy real estate deal which allowed Obama to buy a swank home at a massive discount. Obama has tried a bit of “Tony who?” since Rezko’s legal problems began, but there is no chance that Obama will really be able to separate himself from Rezko.

There has been much said about what a fresh, new thing Obama is – left out of all this is the very concrete fact that Obama emerges out of Chicago politics. A lot things go into Chicago politics, but “honesty” only gets in there when preceded by “dis”. How deep is Obama into the corruption endemic to Chicago? (Side Note: Why is Chicago so corrupt? Because it is a one-party State, as it were…the Democrats run literally everything in that area and with unchallenged power comes the overwhelming temptation to be corrupt as all get out.) Its unclear – he’s certainly in the muck, but whether its ankle or neck deep on him we haven’t been able to determine.

There is, however, one person who likely knows every last detail about Obama and the Chicago Democratic machine – Hillary Clinton. The longer this race goes on and the more it looks like Hillary won’t be able to wrap it up before the convention, the more likely will “sources” reveal more details of Obama’s past and political connections.

As usual when the global warming zealots show up:

It snowed, but they still came. A heavy snowfall blanketed a global warming protest outside the State House in Annapolis this morning, but it did not dampen the shouts of about 400 activists who urged lawmakers to pass the nation’s toughest greenhouse gas control law.

As supporters waved signs, chanted and banged drums, 18 legislators walked down a symbolic green carpet to sign up as co-sporsors to a bill that would mandate that all businesses in Maryland cut emissions of global warming pollution by 25 percent by 2020 and 90 percent by 2050.

“We are going to pass this bill this year,” said State Sen. Paul Pinsky, a Democrat from Prince George’s County and chairman of the senate’s environmental matters subcommittee. “We are not going to rest, we are not going to stop….We are going to keep going until we pass this bill.”

This happens so often that one begins to think that a Power is trying to get something through rather thick, leftwing skulls…be that as it may, there is also this news from Greenland:

Residents insist Greenland’s freezing temperatures don’t mean global warming has been called off

While the rest of Europe is debating the prospects of global warming during an unseasonably mild winter, a brutal cold snap is raging across the semi-autonomous nation of Greenland.

On Disko Bay in western Greenland, where a number of prominent world leaders have visited in recent years to get a first-hand impression of climate change, temperatures have dropped so drastically that the water has frozen over for the first time in a decade.

‘The ice is up to 50cm thick,’ said Henrik Matthiesen, an employee at Denmark’s Meteorological Institute who has also sailed the Greenlandic coastline for the Royal Arctic Line. ‘We’ve had loads of northerly winds since Christmas which has made the area miserably cold.’

Matthiesen suggested the cold weather marked a return to the frigid temperatures common a decade ago.

Gee, almost like its some sort of…well…what would the best word be?…..hmmm…oh, I know: its almost like a cycle; you know, a recurring pattern in weather where sometimes its warming, and sometimes its colder…

Interesting article over at Family Security Matters about the connections between super-rich financial speculators, like George Soros, and the Democratic party – and the vested interest such malefactors of great wealth have in Democratic victory this November.

The Democrats, as well as the larger political left, are in tight with financial sharks like Soros – he wants a world of ultra-liberal social policies, and he’s willing to pay for it…and for all the left’s complaints about “the rich”, they are not at all shy about taking money not just from rich people, but from rich people who got that way by ruthlessly exploiting downturns in the global economy (in other words, they profit most with poor and middle class people suffer). Just another example of leftwing “do as I say, not as I do”.

Geesh:

London, Jan 11, 2008 (CNA).- A British Airways employee who sued her employer after it required her to cover up a cross necklace while she worked has lost her religious discrimination lawsuit, WorldNetDaily reports.

Nadia Eweida, a check-in worker at Heathrow Airport and a Coptic Christian, was sent home after refusing to remove the cross necklace. British Airways said the necklace was a violation of the company’s dress code.

Eweida charged her employer with religious discrimination, saying that the company allowed religious employees like those adhering to Islam or Hinduism to wear faith-related clothing, jewelry, religious markings, or other items.

The Reading Employment Tribunal had previously ruled against Eweida, but she appealed the decision.

The 56-year-old Eweida, who was placed on unpaid leave, reacted to the ruling, saying, “I’m very disappointed. I’m speechless really because I went to the tribunal to seek justice. But the judge has given way for BA to have a victory on imposing their will on all their staff.”

The story goes on to note that other religions – Islam, Hinduism, etc – are allowed to display their religious symbols because, supposedly, they can’t be concealed, as a cross can. And so, translation: “Look, we’re a post-Christian corporate body and we really don’t like to be reminded of religion at all…but as the other religions might blow something up or cut of a head or two, we’ve decided that we can only discriminate against Christians…”.

That famed Lancet study which claimed that 650,000 Iraqis had been killed as a result of the liberation? Partially funded by anti-war, anti-Bush fanatic George Soros:

A STUDY that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.

Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.

The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.

New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people – less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate – have died since the invasion in 2003.

“The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research,” said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.

The Lancet study was commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and led by Les Roberts, an associate professor and epidemiologist at Columbia University. He reportedly opposed the war from the outset.

The lies being perpetrated by the anti-war forces grow more astounding all the time – its gotten so bad that we must, henceforward, work on the assumption that any really bad report about the War on Terrorism in general, or the liberation of Iraq in particular, is – at best – incorrect and – at worst – an outright fabrication. In a way, this is entirely unsurprising – the anti-war movement’s foundation stone, as it were, is ANSWER – Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. ANSWER was formed on September 14, 2001 – a mere three days after the 9/11 attacks and its purpose, from the start, was to undermine any American effort to respond to the attacks. ANSWER’s primary founders came from the Workers World Party – a hard-core, communist party dedicated to the destruction of the United States as we know it. So hardcore is the Workers World Party that they actually have kind things to say about North Korea, and they applauded the massacre of the democrats by the Chinese government in Tienamen Square. Of course, the anti-war movement has gained adherents from all sorts of different organizations since September 14th, 2001 – but by taking their cue from ANSWER, the anti-war movement has been shot through with lies from the get-go.

I was warning leftwingers early on that they should keep their distance from any movement even remotely connected to ANSWER – it all fell on deaf ears; so eager are lefties to believe the worst about the United States that they easily swallowed whatever ANSWER peddled. Lie down with dogs, come up with fleas – and the anti-war left needs about a dozen flea collars just to get rid of the ANSWER bugs planted in their midst.

Rather sad, actually:

Conn Esq Web Design was originally intended to be a corporation offering internet design and programming services, holding Free Dominion as an example of its production. But in the past year the corporation has begun to see ownership of Free Dominion as too much of a potential liability because the website has become a target for individuals and government organizations determined to attack freedom of speech, using a variety of methods at their disposal. Considering the political climate in Canada today, Conn Esq Web Design Ltd. has made the corporate decision to sell Free Dominion to Liberty News Service Inc. of Panama City, Panama.

Liberty News Service’s corporate mission is to buy websites from individuals and corporations living in countries where free speech is under attack, and protect those websites from being shut down or seized by oppressive governments.

What is the trouble? Well, you can get a barely legible complaint (PDF) filed against your publication by a radical Islamist, and one of Canada’s varied “human rights commissions” can haul you before a tribunal (PDF) to answer the charges. Even if you prevail, its going to cost you time and money to defend yourself…so, better to bow down and give up freedom of speech…or “outsource” your liberty to Panama. Free Dominion is just pre-emptively avoiding having to defend basic freedom of speech against fascist, PC-police in Canada.

One upon a time, Canada generously poured out its blood and treasure to defend freedom – now it attacks freedom in order to prevent incipient tryants from being allegedly offended.